Field of the Embodiments of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to information retrieval and, more specifically, to a user-directed personal information assistant.
Description of the Related Art
Use of electronic devices, such as personal computers, smartphones, smart watches, etc., is becoming increasingly popular in all aspects of daily life. Such devices provide users with convenient access to databases that include information on a variety of topics. In order to locate specific types of content about an object of interest within those databases, a user may submit a textual query associated with the object of interest to a search engine. Search results for the textual query are then presented to the user, enabling the user to visit different websites in order to locate the website that contains the most relevant information.
One common obstacle confronted by users attempting to locate information about an object of interest is providing an accurate textual description of the object to the search engine. For example, in many situations, a user would like to learn specific information about a particular object that the user has come across, but the user may not be able to accurately identify the object to the search engine (e.g., using an object name or some other type of object identifier). Consequently, in such instances, the user must first determine the identity of the object by describing one or more physical attributes of the object to the search engine. Then, to the extent the object is identified by the search engine, the user might need to perform an additional search to locate a specific type of information about the object. This type of multi-step process, which is common with current search techniques, is tedious and oftentimes produces unsatisfactory results.
As the foregoing illustrates, one or more techniques that enable a user to more effectively acquire information about objects in the user's environment would be useful.